The issue of street harassment has gotten a bunch of attention in the media lately. According to stopstreetharassment.org:

Gender-based street harassment is unwanted comments, gestures, and actions forced on a stranger in a public place without their consent and is directed at them because of their actual or perceived sex, gender, gender expression, or sexual orientation.

Street harassment is a problem in general, but is especially prevalent on college campuses (where many astronomers work), is especially scary at night and in isolated places (when and where astronomical observing happens), can affect how safe someone feels traveling alone to unfamiliar places (like conferences and observatories) or how late they feel comfortable staying at work. Street harassment is something, that while might seem like a non-astronomy issue, actually can have real impact on the professional life of an astronomer because it affects one's ability to travel freely through the world without fear of violence or abuse.

Update: The AAS CSWA Survey on Workplace Climate will be closing on March 15th (at midnight, EST). We have received over 400 responses already and would like to thank everyone who has participated thus far. For those who have not filled out the survey, please do so as soon as possible. Also, for those who volunteered for the follow-up interview portion, Dr. Kate Clancy will be contacting you in the next month to arrange those interviews. Preliminary results will be presented this summer.

In the March issue of Physics Today is a story about how the American Physical Society (APS) has put together an ad hoc committee to look into issues relevant to physicists who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT), or other sexual or gender minority. In the interviews below, seven scientists tell what it was like coming out professionally, how their sexual or gender identity interfaces with their careers, and how the environment could be improved in science, technolog
y, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields.

4. NSF Report on Women, Minorities, and Persons with Disabilities in the Sciences

From: Daryl Haggard [dhaggard_at_amherst.edu]

About this report:

Women, Minorities, and Persons with Disabilities in Science and Engineering provides statistical information about the participation of these three groups in science and engineering education and employment. Its primary purpose is to serve as an information source. It offers no endorsement of or recommendations about policies or programs. National Science Foundation reporting on this topic is mandated by the Science and Engineering Equal Opportunities Act (Public Law 96-516).

5. The Gender Breakdown of the Applicant Pool for Tenure-Track Faculty Positions

From: Meredith Hughes [amhughes_at_wesleyan.edu]

by Todd A. Thompson

The demographics of the field of Astronomy, and the gender balance in particular, is an important active area of investigation. A piece of information missing from the discussion is the gender breakdown of the applicant pool for faculty positions. For a sample of 35 tenure-track faculty positions at 25 research universities advertised over the last few years in astronomy and astrophysics, I find that the ratio of female applicants to the total number of applicants is ~0.2, with little dispersion and with no strong dependence on the total number of applicants. Some discussion is provided in the context of the fraction of women at the graduate student, postdoctoral researcher, and assistant professor levels, but strong conclusions are not possible given the limitations of the study. Current and future faculty search committees will likely be interested to compare their numbers to this distribution to decide whether or not they could be doing more to attract an applicant pool that is representative of the community.

University feminism initiatives, like Oxford’s women in the humanities, at first glance seem valuable in their intentions and goals. However, the vast majority of faculty-led initiatives share the naïve assumption that “women” and “feminism” can be talked about without conversations about race, class, disability, sexuality, and other axes of oppression.

Without these perspectives, you can combat only the sexism experienced by a dominant group – which tends to be white, cisgender, able-bodied and financially comfortable.